Voodoo Child
by Chocolate Randomizer
Summary: Why don't you do it? You know you really want to...   First she makes a voodoo doll and then finds a pin. Now she hears a hissing voice...stick it in...  With divorced parents and an odd voice in her head, it's no wonder that Rin's life is upside down...
1. Fading Light

**Yes, it is I, with a new story :D This is my first angst/horror story :D Hope you enjoy xD**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Vocaloid or McDonalds or a voodoo doll **

* * *

><p><em>Find a pin and stick it in...<br>Find a pin and stick it in..._

Rin spotted the sign as soon as she came turned into her street from the main road. She kept walking along the street, her shoulder-length blonde hair bouncing in the chill of the fading November light. Her eyes scanned the square board at the top of the tall, white-painted post standing beside her gate. It hadn't been there when she had left for school that morning, but she had a nasty feeling she knew what kind of sign it was.

She stopped by the gate and looked up at it in disgust. FOR SALE, the sign said in large letters. Below them were the name and phone number of an estate agent.

Rin scowled. She pushed through the gate and stomped down the cobble path to the house. Her footsteps resonated through the still air. She fumbled her key out of her coat pocket, opened the door, went into the hall and slammed it behind her. She dumped her schoolbag at the bottom of the stairs.

"Mum!" she yelled. "Mum, where are you?"

The kitchen was empty, the sound of the kettle boiling accompanied it. The back door was wide open and Rin went into the garden. Her mother was raking fallen leaves, piling them up on the scruffy patch of grass they called the lawn. Mum turned and smiled at her.

"Why is that sign outside?" Rin asked. "You didn't tell me anything about selling the house. You can't do it. I won't let you!"

"I told you last week the estate agent was coming" Mum said, her smile faltering. Her blonde hair was in a ponytail, and she was wearing jeans tucked into Wellington boots, and an old hooded coat.

"You chose to ignore me, that's all. I know it's hard for you, but we simply can't put it off any more"

"I don't want to move" said Rin, her scowl deepening, her voice as determined as she could make it sound. "I've lived here my whole life"

"But things have changed, Rin" said Mum. She started raking leaves again, her movements brisk and busy. "This house is too big for just the two of us, and it's certainly far too expensive for me to run on my own. And now that your father and I have decided to get a..."

"I'm not listening!" Rin yelled, clamping her hands over her ears. She knew Mum's next word would be 'divorce', and she couldn't bear to hear it.

Mum stopped raking and looked round.

"Oh, Rin" she said, reaching out to touch her daughter's cheek.

"You're going to have to get used to the idea some time, hun. It doesn't have to be the end of the world, does it?"

"It might be for me" said Rin, uncovering her ears and swaying back to avoid her mother's hand. "But then nobody cares what I think, do they?"

They stood in silence, the last few leaves that clung onto the age-old trees swaying about and the sky above them darkening with clouds the deep purple of fresh bruises, the chill autumn air laced with the faint smoky smell of old bonfires.

Rin shivered and crossed her arms.

"I care" Mum said. "In fact, I'm worried about you. You never see your friends any more, you sit in that room of yours too much, and you seem so...angry all the time" she waited for Rin to say something, but Rin stayed silent. "Ok" Mum said. "Let me finish out here, then we'll sit down and have a little chat, like we used to when you came home from school. You go and get changed and put get the tea ready. I put the kettle on, so it should be done. I could murder a cup of tea"

"I don't want a little chat," Rin snapped. "I've got homework to do"

She turned on her heel and marched into the house. She took off her coat and slung it over the banisters, grabbed her bag, stomped upstairs and barged into her room. She dropped her bag and sat on her desk, jabbing the 'power' button of her stereo system. The radio was tuned to her favourite station, and music flowed from the orange speakers- the current single by a band she liked.

But even with the sweet symphonic sound coming from her stereo system, Rin barely paid attention to it. The sweet, smooth voices a mere background murmer to the furious thoughts filling her mind.

'Things have changed' Mum has said.

_They certainly have._

Angry? You bet she was angry. After what had happened, she had a perfect right to be.

Until a year before, Rin had believed they were a happy family of three. Of course, her parents had been moody with each other sometimes, and argued quite a lot. But all mums and dads argued, didn't they? Then the rows had suddenly got worse, and one terrible week they had gone on and on – until they had ended with Dad walking out. At that time, Mum had been too upset to tell Rin much. But what she had said had been more than enough.

Dad had a girlfriend; someone at his office. A woman called Lily.

Rin remembered how she'd felt when she had first heard that name – shocked, disbelieving, hurt and, yes, angry. Very angry. It was several weeks before she could speak to her father on the phone, a couple of months before she would agree to see him, although he took her out most weekends now, to see a film, to eat at McDonald's, sometimes just to sit in the park and talk.

Not that Rin said much. She grunted single word replies to Dad's questions about school, and said nothing when he talked about the so-called Lily. And he did, a lot. Rin had wondered why he kept bringing her into the conversation; then gradually she'd begun to realise Dad wanted her to meet his girlfriend. But he'd only got the courage up a few times to ask, and so far Rin had responded with a look that said 'how dare you?'

She was sure things would never have changed if it hadn't been for...that woman.

Rin had seen her once. Dad had returned to collect more of his stuff, and Lily had sat outside in the car. Rin had hidden upstairs and peeked from behind a curtain. She'd studied Lily's tense profile, the pretty face her father fell for, the full, pink lips and dyed blonde hair burning themselves into her memory.

"_So you'd like to get back at her?" _a voice said, breaking into her thoughts. She wondered where the voice had come from, then realised it must be the DJ on the radio. Her name was Miku and she hosted an after-school phone-in. Rin thought Miku was cool, and her show was always interesting – people calling in to talk about problems with their problems with their parents or teachers or friends.

Rin stood up and started to change out of her school uniform.

"Yes, I would" a girl said, her voice coated with bitterness. "She's been so mean I've even been thinking of making a doll that looks like her and sticking pins in it"

"Whoa, a bit of the old voodoo magic!" said Miku, laughing. "Well, that won't make her want to be your best friend again, but if it helps you feel better..."

Rin was standing before the full-length mirror on her wardrobe, and paused halfway through pulling a sweater over her head. She'd just had a vision of a doll made to look exactly like Lily, a doll bristling with pins. Rin finished putting on the sweater, flicked her short hair out of the collar with a quick motion of her hands. She looked into her blue eyes in the mirror – and for an instant, they seemed to flash a fiery, scary yellow.

Needless to say, Rin was startled, and stepped back. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, then opened them, and cautiously looked in the mirror again. But the yellow had dissapeared and her eyes had reverted to their normal colour. She glanced round and saw that the window blind was raised, the last rays of the setting sun shining over the roofs of the houses on the other side of the street.

_It must have been a reflection..._

But it had been oddly disturbing. And something else was bothering her too. She couldn't get that image of the Lily doll out of her mind...

* * *

><p><strong>So, what do you think? Leave a review :) Criticism is accepted :)<strong>


	2. Into The Night

**Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid...**

* * *

><p>At dinner that evening Mum tried again to talk about moving. They were sitting at their usual places in the kitchen, Mum at one end of the old pine table, Rin at the side, next to her, facing the place where her father had always sat. But his chair was empty, as it had been for the last year.<p>

"We'll probably only be able to afford a flat" Mum was saying. "Still, the estate agent said we should be able to find something nice, maybe on the ground floor with two bedrooms and a garden. She left me some details. We could have a look at them later if you like, see what you think."

"You already know what I think," Rin muttered, poking at the pasta with her fork, refusing to meet her mother's gaze. "I don't want to move."

Mum put down her own fork and sighed. "I'm sorry, Rin," she said quietly,"but it's going to happen whether you want it to or not. Listen, I'm sure it's the right thing for the both of us. I wouldn't be doing it otherwise."

"Fine," said Rin, and shrugged. She raised her head and looked at her mother with cold eyes. "Go ahead then. Just don't expect me to like the idea."

Mum didn't speak for a second, her eyes locked on to her daughter's. "Ok, love," she said at last. "Have it your way. I know you're upset about what's happened. So am I, although I had a feeling it was coming...but remember, you won't ever be happy again till you stop being angry. And that's what I want. I want my old Rin back – my happy, smiling, laughing Rin."

Rin dropped her fork into her bowl and pushed it away. "Can I get down from the table, please?" she asked. "I'm not hungry." She didn't wait for an answer, but immediately stood up and marched out of the kitchen.

It was dark in the hall and darker on the upstairs landing. Rin went into her room, and was glad that she'd left the bedside lamp on earlier, it's warm, golden glow keeping the menacing shadows penned in the room's corners.

She hit the stereo system's 'power' switch, then lay on the bed. She took a book from the bedside table, but didn't open it. She was even angrier now. She would love to be the Rin her mother had described. She was fed up with being miserable, wished she was happy again. But her old life had been stolen from her, and all her happiness and laughter had been taken along with it. Including her father. She couldn't think of anything that could revive her from her misery.

Then suddenly that image of the Lily doll bobbed up to the surface of her mind, and Miku's words along with it. A bit of the old voodoo magic...

"Voodoo," Rin muttered. She liked the sound of the word, the buzz of the 'v' between her front teeth and the bottom lip, the spooky 'oo's separated and at the same time linked by the 'd'. But apart from a few vague memories of things she'd seen in films, she didn't really know what it meant.

Rin put her book down, swung her legs off the bed and went over to the desk. Next to the stereo were the monitor and keyboard of a computer, a recent present from her father. She knew he'd bought it out of guilt, so she'd barely used it. She remembered that it came with a range of CDs, mostly games she'd never play. But there was an encyclopedia too.

She switched on the computer, found the right CD case, loaded the disk in the stack under her desk. Soon she was reading the entry headed 'Voodoo'.

_**Religion developed in the Caribbean by Africans taken there as slaves...mixture of African and Christian elements...often depicted in horror movies as sorcery, a magical means to harm enemies...**_

She searched for a mention of voodoo dolls.

_**Figures made in the likeness of someone into which pins can be stuck, supposedly to inflict pain on an enemy, or to cause death...**_

She had come to the end of the entry. Rin sat still for a moment, absorbing the information she just read. Her face was bathed in the pale blue light of the monitor, her hand poised on the mouse. A creepy smile crawled onto her face.

_Why not? It would be simple enough, I'm sure. All I need is an old doll to work with, and I have a few of those. Besides, it's just a little bit of fun, a mere game to make me feel better. It's not like it's going to hurt anyone._

"_Yes, do it, do it,"_ a voice hissed in her ear_. "hurt her, hurt her!" _

Rin looked round at the radio, but she knew the voice wasn't coming from there. It was as if someone else was in the room with her, someone invisible. She closed her eyes and shook her head, but the voice persisted, buzzing in her other ear now like an irritating insect, repeating the same words.

"_Hurt her, hurt her, hurt her" ... _until at last she clamped her hands over both ears – and the voice stopped. Rin opened her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she sat up, breathed out and decided she must have imagined it.

Although for a second the voice had seemed very real.

Mum checked on her later, said it was time she turned of the radio and got into bed. Rin went to the bathroom and cleaned her teeth. Back in her room she changed into her orange and yellow striped pyjamas and slid beneath the duvet. She tried to read, but her mind was racing. After a while she realized she'd been stuck on the same sentence for five minutes, and put her book down once more.

Rin switched off the lamp, as she usually did. The shadows in the corners of the room eagerly leapt out and merged into a velvety blackness, the only light accompanying her being the soft blinking from the green numerals of her alarm clock and the winking dots between them. It was always like that, of course. But tonight it was somehow far too dark, and she sat up and switched the lamp back on.

She sat on her bed and thought for a moment. "Oh, why not?" she muttered.

* * *

><p><strong>And that is chapter 2 :) It was kinda hard to describe the 'voodoo' word, but I got there in the end :D I actually do like the word voodoo because it sounds funny x) Review and as you all know, criticism is accepted :D<strong>


	3. Thus the Madness Begins

**Here is a quick update before I go to school because I am so nice x) **

**Disclaimer: I do not own :L BUT I WILL SOMEDAY /shot/**

* * *

><p>Rin got out of her bed and tiptoed over to a large basket standing beside the wardrobe. Mum called it 'The Junk Basket' because Rin kept all the things she couldn't bear to throw away in it – her old toys and games, souvenirs from outings and holidays, diaries and letters, even her old exercise books.<p>

She started rummaging, doing it quietly so Mum wouldn't hear. Rin knew exactly what she was looking for, and it didn't take long to find it.

Rin sat at the desk to examine the object of her search. It was a small cloth doll, one she remembered playing with when she'd been very young. It didn't have a name like most of the other dolls she'd hung on to, and it wasn't particularly special. It still wore the original blue dress it had come in, and it had an almost blank face, the eyes no more than black dots; a downward line and two smaller dots to suggest a nose and a short horizontal line for a mouth. But, more importantly, it had nylon hair that was just the right length and colour. The same length and colour as Lily's.

Rin held the doll in her hand. And almost before she knew what she was doing, she had opened the desk drawer and grabbed a fistful of felt-tip pens. She used a black one to give the doll eyebrows; pink to create a pair of pouting, rosebud lips. She fluffed out the blonde hair. Then she pulled up the dress and wrote LILY in bright, blood red, right across the dolls body.

Rin stared at the spiky letters on the white fabric. She told herself how silly it all was and laughed. But it was a nervous, uneasy laugh, because part of her felt that this wasn't a game and that it was a very strange thing to be doing.

Then she heard the same voice hissing in her ear, which she noticed was a male one. The words were hard to make out at first, but they soon grew louder, clearer and easier to understand.

"_Find a pin and stick it in,"_ the voice hissed, as if he was guiding her _"find a pin and stick it in"_

Rin felt compelled to do what he said. She looked in the drawer and saw a badge from an old birthday card. She picked it up, turned it over, bent the pin away from the metal circle till it stood out straight, like a tiny dagger.

Suddenly, from the corner of her eye, Rin thought she saw a movement beyond her bed, in the darkest corner of the room, and a flash of burning yellow in the blackness. She turned around, her heart fluttering and her throat tight. But there was nothing there, only the deep, thick, velvety shadows.

Her eyes were drawn to the flashing dots between the green numerals on the alarm clock. As she watched, the numbers changed from 11:59 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.

_It's midnight, the time for magic, _she thought, a part of her still detached, wondering why she was behaving so bizarrely. But the voice kept on.

"_Stick it in, stick it in, stick it in." _The shadows in the room seemed to gather round her, a grey mist surrounding her, and Rin felt her arms and legs trembling again.

"_In, in, in..."_

She jammed the pin into the doll's fabric stomach as hard as she could. To her horror, the doll seemed to squirm in her hand and she dropped it.

Then a flood of darkness filled her mind and she knew no more.

* * *

><p>Light. Pale, weak, morning light seeping round the edges of the plain, yellow-coloured blind pulled down over the window. Rin's alarm clock had bleeped, but she lay stiffly in bed, unable to enjoy the cosy warmth beneath the duvet, those few, usually delicious moments before she had to get up for school. She felt tense and wondered if she'd had a bad dream.<p>

Then she remembered. The Lily doll; the shadows in the corners of the room; the ominous grey mist that encircled her; the voice telling her to stick the pin in. Was all this meant to happen? With a shiver of renewed horror, Rin remembered the doll squirming in her hand as she'd done it. Or maybe she'd dreamed that. In fact, maybe the whole thing had been a nightmare after all. But then all her hopes got crushed once she glanced over at the desk.

The doll was lying where she must have dropped it the night before, on the desk beside the stereo, the pin of the badge buried deep in its stomach.

Rin got out of bed and stood staring at the doll. Her room was warm – the heating came on early at this time of year – but she was shivering even more now. She took a deep breath, yanked the badge free and threw it in the drawer, grabbed the doll and stuffed it into The Junk Basket and dumped the lid on top. Then she jumped back into bed and tried to stop herself shivering.

"Rin!" she heard Mum call from downstairs. "Your breakfast is ready!"

Rin relaxed a little and felt the remors begin to subside. The familiarity of Mum's voice anchored things, soothed her scared soul and drove the memories away. Voodoo dolls weren't part of the ordinary world where mums called daughters for breakfast, were they? Why had she got herself into such a state?

* * *

><p><strong> Thus, the madness begins x) Review and you get a chocolate chip cookie xD<strong>


	4. Dark Thoughts

**Disclaimer: We all know the drill...I say I don't own Vocaloid and then I say that I will but then I get punished by either getting shot or slapped across the face with an orange...yippee...this story is officially making me depressed :O But no worries! I will continue :D**

* * *

><p>Rin slipped out of bed, put on her dressing gown and hurried downstairs.<p>

It was bright and noisy and completely normal in the kitchen, the kettle boiling, the toaster popping, Mum humming along to the radio and eating her breakfast before she went to work. By the time Rin said goodbye and left for school, she had almost forgotten the doll and what she had done to it.

Almost, but not quite. A shadowy image of the doll and the mysterious voice hovered at the edge of her mind and, as the day went by, Rin had to concentrate harder and harder to keep it at bay. Whenever she let that concentration slip – if her attention wandered during a boring lesson, for instance – the image instantly grew stronger, the voice hissing and buzzing and whining in her ears. Once she was fed up of trying to keep it at the bottom of her mind, she began to wonder who that voice belonged to. She had never heard that voice before, she was certain.

Rin could barely think of anything else on her way home. Dark thoughts filled her mind, visions of sticking pins in the doll and what that might do to her father's girlfriend, the images accompanied by fierce pleasure. But there were other feelings too – fear, and a sense that she might be on the edge of doing something wrong. The sky was closing in as she turned into her street, thick clouds lit red underneath by the sun behind the houses, a whispering breeze chasing leaves around her feet and along the pavement in front of her.

Rin went through the gate, her eyes averted from the sign. She walked down the path and opened the front door. Mum wasn't home yet, and it was quiet and still inside the house she was familiar to. Rin took off her coat and hung it up, went into the kitchen, made a sandwich and poured herself a glass of cold milk. She took her snack upstairs to her room, put the plate and glass on the desk and dropped her bag on the bed. She was going to eat her sandwich, drink the milk, then get on with her homework. But she didn't do any of that.

Instead, she found herself standing beside The Junk Basket.

_I won't lift the lid. _But then she realized she had done just that, and there was the doll, lying face up on top of everything else inside, even though Rin remembered ramming it in and pushing it down beneath all the other stuff. She sensed that the doll was staring up at her. Waiting.

The voice started hissing again in Rin's ear.

"_Pick it up. Pick it up, pick it up."_

Rin did as she was told. She held the doll in her hand. It was exactly as she remembered, the black eyebrows, the pinklips, the blood-red letters on the body spelling LILY. Although now it also had a tiny hole in the fabric of its stomach. Rin brushed a fingertip across the hole, wondering if it really was possible to hurt someone by jabbing a pin into a doll...

Suddenly, she felt she simply had to know – and there was only one way to find out.

She pulled her mobile out of her bag and called her father at his office.

"Well, this is a lovely surprise," Dad said when she was put through to him. "You don't usually phone me here. What's brought this on then?"

"I don't know," said Rin. "I just felt like a chat, I suppose." She kept her voice light and tried to talk in the way she'd always done before he left.

"Hey, that's great," said Dad.

She could tell that he was pleased, and she realised he probably thought she was beginning to ease up on him. How wrong was he. But she couldn't care about that. He could think what he liked. All she was interested in was his girlfriend.

"So – how's school going this week?" Dad asked.

"School's OK," she replied. "But I was wondering – how's...Lily?"

There was a profound silence at the other end of the line. Rin had never used Lily's name in a conversation with her father before, not once, and for a second she thought she might have gone too far, that Dad had somehow worked out she must have a sinister reason for asking her.

"Nice of you to ask," Dad said eventually, and to Rin's relief he sounded even more pleased than he had done before. But there was some worry in his voice too, and a little puzzlement.

"She was a bit poorly last night, actually. She woke up about midnight with a pretty bad stomach ache. It kept her awake most of the night, but then this morning the pain just vanished, and she seems fine now."

"Mr. Kagamine, there are some files you need to read through" A faint male voice was heard from the phone.

"I'd better go, love. Work awaits. I've got lots to do...no rest for the wicked, eh? See you at the weekend. I thought we could try that new ice cream place in Norbury; if it's all right with you..."

"Yeah...sure, Dad," Rin mumbled, her mind suddenly in turmoil.

They said their goodbyes and Rin hrrriedly ended the call. She sat on the bed, still holding the doll in her hand. She stared at it and felt her skin crawl. The thought that the magic might actually have worked scared her and made her feel guilty too. But it also made her feel excited in a twisted way.

It was then that she heard the voice again. It had returned, was urging her to try again, to do something else to the Lily doll.

"_Do it, do it, do it. Hurt her, hurt her, hurt her..." _

Rin did her best to resist it. She decided to go downstairs and watch TV for a while. Maybe that would get this crazy nonsense out of her mind.

An instant later she was in her mother's bedroom, searching through the dresser drawer where mum kept her sewing kit. Rin found what she was after – a little box with letters that spelled LENKA KAGAMINE on it which she remembered seeing when Mum had altered her school dress at the beginning of the term. Rin took the box out and opened it. The silver pins inside slithered out and rustled as if they were alive.

* * *

><p><strong>Just so you know, Norbury is not made up, it's actually a place in London :) oh and there is a new dessert shop there which is NOM! Review because that is what gives me motivation x) Anyone wanna have a guess as to who is Rin's dad? Winner gets a muffin xD<strong>


	5. Shadow Creature

**A fast update :O You should have seen me yesterday, I was on my desk, writing non-stop :) The plot bunnies just keep on coming for this story xD I was thinking of finishing this story and THEN finishing my other story and THEN starting a new one :D **

**Rin's dad is Rinto/a Kagamine :D** **Congratulations to MoriandMeForever and Kagamination for getting the right answer X) The muffins are flying your way xD**

**Disclaimer: Me no own Vocaloid**

* * *

><p>"Come on, Rin," said Mum. "I really think it's time you went to bed."<p>

Rin was sitting in the corner of the big sofa in the front room, beneath the glare of the main light. She was hugging a cushion, watching TV with the sound up loud, a detective story she'd seen before, although that didn't matter. It had been keeping her mind occupied, stopping her from thinking.

"Do I have to?" she muttered. "I want to know what happens in this."

"It's late, and you've got school tomorrow," said Mum. She was standing over Rin with her hands on her hips. "Anyway, you do know what's going to happen. We watched it a few months ago, remember? So no more arguements, please."

Rin sighed dramatically, tossed the cushion aside and jumped to her feet. She brushed past her mother, went into the dimly lit hall and ran upstairs. She paused on the landing outside her room, reluctant to go in, listening as Mum lowered the TV's volume and changed channels. Then Rin turned, took a deep breath, quickly went inside and closed the door behind her.

She stood with her back against it. She had left the lamp on as before, but this time the shadows in the corners were pressing in on its golden glow, eagerly waiting to drown it in their thick blackness. Rin didn't want to look at the dark, keeping her eyes firmly on the lit area – on her desk.

The box of pins was still where she had left it, next to the stereo.

Rin shuddered, had one of those small, harmless trembling fits that Mum always said meant someone was walking over your grave. She remembered how earlier that evening she had brought the box of pins back to her room, how she had felt an urge to start sticking pins into the Lily doll immediatly. And how hard it had been to stop herself. The sense of compulsion, of being under the control of a force she didn't understand, had been so scary. No, scary doesn't even begin to describe how she felt. But it had been thrilling too.

And then the voice had returned, harsher and more insistent; it hadn't even stopped when she'd clamped her hands over her ears. Rin had finally fled from her room, putting a couple of closed doors between herself and the box of pins and the doll, which she had stuffed in The Junk Basket again. It had worked for a while, Mum's chatter about her day keeping the voice at bay, the TV drowning it out. But Rin had known the voice was just below the threshold of her awareness, waiting to make itself heard. Now she was back in her room it was already faintly there.

Rin gritted her teeth and went to the desk. She opened the drawer, swept the box of pins inside and slammed the drawer shut. She jabbed the 'power' button on the stereo and started getting ready for bed, humming along to the music as she changed into her pyjamas, trying to keep her mind on anything but the doll, the pins and the voice. She went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth and got into bed. She picked up a book, forced herself to read, turned the pages and made her eyes follow the sentences.

As usual, Mum looked in on her a little later,told her to switch off the stereo and said goodnight. Rin heard her go into her own bedroom and close the door. Suddenly, the house was full of the unfamiliar, uncomfortable silence, the air in Rin's room thick with it. She sat stiffly in bed, listening, feeling her heart thump in her chest, the blood pulsing through her body. The voice was in her ears, the hissing becoming words that couldn't be clearer.

"_Get the doll, get the doll, get the doll. Hurt her, hurt her, hurt her..."_

Rin realised she was standing beside The Junk Basket, and didn't know how she'd got there. She lifted the lid. The doll was lying where she had left it. Rin didn't want to pick it up, but she couldn't stop herself from reaching out towards it. The doll leapt into her hand. The shadows swirled beyond the glow of the lamp, the familiar grey mist swirled around her and Rin swayed with its motion. She closed her eyes and when she opened them she was sitting at her desk, the doll squirming in her grasp, the box of pins open in front of her and the pins rustling and gleaming.

"_Stick them in, stick them in, stick them in..."_

Now Rin had a pin in her other hand. She rolled the cool, slender piece of silver metal between the tip of her forefinger and thumb, studied it in the light of the lamp, her eyes zooming in like a camera on the sharp, glinting point. She squeezed the pin tight in her fingers, bit her lip, felt herself slowly drawing her hand back...and stopped, resisting the urge to stick it in.

But it was hard, so hard, and her hand and arm began to tremble.

"_Hurt her,"_ said the voice _"HURT HER, HURT HER, __**HURT HER!**__"_

It sounded more real now, as if it were coming from another person in the room. Rin turned, looked in the darkest corner, and someone – or something – was there. At first, all she could see was an outline, a dark figure only separated from the shadows around it by its thicker blackness. Then two bright dots winked into existence near the head of the figure.

A pair of fiery yellow eyes was staring back at her.

She saw that the figure was person-shaped, and the height only a couple of centimeters bigger than her. But it was like a shadow given substance, a creature made of darkness solidified, with no features other than those staring, burning eyes. Rin felt a peculiar sensation at the back of her neck and realized it was true, the hairs did stand up when you were scared. And Rin was more than frightened than she'd ever been in her life before – although there was that thrill of excitement in the fear too.

* * *

><p><strong>And I shall leave it there x) What do you think of it so far? Share your thoughts by reviewing xD<strong>


	6. Deepening Darkness

**Can it be? Another chapter? I'm updating almost everyday now :) You guys are worth it x) **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid. You should know that by now...**

* * *

><p>"<em>Why don't you do it?"<em> the figure hissed at last. It moved, flowed out of the corner of the room towards her. It stood beside the desk like a dark spectre, those fiery yellow eyes fixed on hers. _"You know you really want to"_

"I can't," said Rin, wondering why she was speaking to this shadow creature. Then she realized that it felt right, that she had been waiting a long time to have such a conversation. "It's wrong to hurt someone...isn't it?"

"_That's just your conscience talking,"_ the figure hissed. Rin could see a hole beneath the eyes now, a thin mouth that moved as he spoke. _"__**SHE**__ didn't think twice about hurting you, did she? You should get back at her!"_

"But it's not the same, is it?" said Rin. "I mean, the doll...the pins..."

"_Of course it is!"_ the figure exclaimed, drifting even closer, the dark mouth almost touching Rin's ear. _"Pain is pain, and she deserves everything she gets. Hurt her, hurt her, hurt her! There's no limit to what you can do, either."_

"What do you mean?" Rin asked, a cold chill running up her spine.

"_Think about it,"_ said the shadow creature _"Just one pin in the doll gave her a stomach ache that lasted till you took the pin out. So what might LOTS of pins do to her? Pins in the doll's stomach, pins in its head, one in its heart..."_

"T-that might...kill her!" whispered Rin. "No, I couldn't do it..."

"_Why not?"_ the shadow creature snapped. His voice almost seemed to be coming from deep inside Rin's head now. _"What are you worried about? No one will ever suspect you. Besides, if you get rid of his girlfriend, Dad will come back and life will be the same as it was before, before, before..."_

Rin sat there, the last word echoing in her mind. She was still holding the doll in one hand and the pin in the other. She was tempted, very tempted...

Then she heard a noise on the landing outside her bedroom. The voice instantly fell silent and Rin felt as if a spell had been broken. She came to her senses, looked over her shoulder and saw that the door was opening. She dropped the pin on the desk and hurriedly got back into bed, pushing the doll beneath the duvet to hide it, grabbing the book from the bedside table.

The shadow creature had vanished as if he had never existed.

Mum's face appeared round the door. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine," said Rin. "I just couldn't sleep, that's all."

"I thought I heard you talking," Mum said, looking puzzled.

"I wasn't," she replied. "Maybe...maybe you imagined it."

Mum seemed satisfied. As soon as she was gone, Rin jumped out of bed and returned the doll to The Junk Basket. Then she got back into bed, and lay there wondering if she had been the one doing the imagining. But the voice soon returned.

"_Life will be the same as it was before, before, before..."_

For life to be the same as it was before...was that even possible? To achieve that...it seemed so simple yet it wasn't.

That night, Rin dreamed of dolls and pins and shadow creatures – and other things too. She dreamed of unbearable pain, murder, and death.

Death darker than the shadows in her room. Much darker.

* * *

><p><strong>Short chapter, I know :) BUT I see you people who read but don't review, and there are LOTS of you...help a gal out and review, YOU GET A COOKIE xD <strong>


	7. Pitch Black Decisions

**This story is about to finish soon x) Two chapters left :) **

**Disclaimer: Refer to all the previous chapters X**)

* * *

><p>The next day was a Friday, a school day like any other. Rin sat in her lessons, did what she had to do, answered if she was spoken to, but her mind was full of what had happened the night before, and she could hardly wait for the day to end. It did at last, and she was first out of the school gates.<p>

It was drizzling, and the late afternoon sky was a ceiling of thick, purple-grey clouds, their bulging, damp undersides pressing down on the roofs of the houses Rin passed. Some of the cars swishing by already had their headlights on, and the beams were weak against the deepening darkness.

Mum was in when she got home, but Rin barely acknowledged her greeting. She took off her coat and went straight upstairs to her bedroom.

She dumped her schoolbag, opened the desk drawer and got out the badge and box of pins. She went over to The Junk Basket and took out the Lily doll. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she put the three items on the duvet in front of her, carefully positioning them.

Rin scanned the trio objects closely. Then she leaned back and sighed.

She had decided to ask herself a simple question. Was she going mad? In the light of day it had been hard to believe in the voice and the creature that seemed to have appeared in her room – hard to believe that she had inflicted pain on someone by sticking a pin in a doll. If it hadn't happened – if it had been a dream or imagination, and Lily's pain that night just a coincidence – then yes, she was going mad. Not just a bit mad either. She must be totally crazy. But none of it had seemed like a dream...

And now she was in her room with the box of pins and the doll in front of her, the memory of how she had felt flooded through her again, that exhilarating mixture of fear and excitement.

_Those feelings had been real enough. And it makes sense as well. _A deeply satisfying kind of sense.

Rin looked up. Her window blind was raised, so she could see that the sky was almost black now. The shadows in the room were as thick as usual, and there was a hissing in her ears. She didn't have to listen to know what the voice was saying, to know that the voice was real, that somehow she'd managed to conjure up a demon.

_A voodoo child. Yes, that's what I'll call him..._ she shivered as she remembered that dark figure. She wondered where he had come from, why conjuring him up had been so easy.

Did the voodoo child give the doll its magic? Or did sticking pins in the doll unleash the voodoo child?...Although none of that really mattered. Not compared to the choice the voodoo child had offered her last night...

Rin picked up the box of pins, opened it, took a couple out and held them in the palm of her hand. She looked at the doll, thought about sticking a pin in the place where a person's heart would be. Could it be that simple? Would it really kill Lily? And if it worked, could she live with herself afterwards?

"_Yes,"_ the voice suddenly hissed inside her head. _"If Dad came back and life was the same as it was before, before, before..."_

Rin closed her eyes for a second, listened to his voice, felt it pulling her deep into a pool of darkness somewhere inside her. Why not give in to it? Why not get rid of Lily once and for all? It would be so good, Rin thought, so very, very satisfying...

There was another voice in her head too, but Rin refused to let her conscience have its say. She opened her eyes, looked down at the pins in her palm, barely visible in the gloom of the room. She rolled them to and fro and smiled, beginning to enjoy the sense that she was in control, that she was powerful and dangerous*. Yes, she would do it, she decided. Perhaps she should even do it now, right this second, get it over and done with...

Suddenly she heard footsteps outside her door, and she froze. Mum was crossing the landing.

Rin held her breath as she heard Mum going downstairs. She relaxed, but decided to do the magic later. At midnight, of course. It would be much safer then, with Mum tucked up in bed and unlikely to walk in and catch her.

Rin put the pins back in the box, rose from the bed and switched on the lamp, the shadows scurrying away from its warm rays. She returned the box and the badge to the desk drawer, and the doll to The Junk Basket. She put the basket lid back on, lowered the window blind and sat at the desk. She stayed in her room for a while longer, doing some of her homework. Then she went downstairs to watch TV, a soap she usually enjoyed. This evening it was images and words, none of it penetrating her mind. She was strangely calm, her feelings of fear and resentment and confusion blended into something that felt strong, a determination to put everything right at last.

When the soap was over, Mum called her into the kitchen for supper.

They sat at their usual places and ate, Mum making all the conversation, asking about Rin's day at school, Rin shrugging or nodding or giving one-word answers. Eventually Mum sighed and put down her knife and fork.

"I think we need to talk, Rin," she said. "Or rather, you do. You're a thirteen year-old girl, you're mature enough to understand that things have changed, hun. You've got to stop being angry and move on, put the past behind you. We both have."

"I'm not angry," said Rin. "I was, but I'm not anymore."

"Oh?" said Mum, surprised. "Why is that? What's changed?"

At that moment Rin almost told her mum about the voodoo child, and what she intended to do. A dark eagerness was welling up inside her, and she wanted to share the certainty of her feelings. Surely Mum must want to get back at the woman who had taken Dad from them, right?

Then Rin realized Mum probably wouldn't believe a word of it, might even do something that would spoil the magic. No, this task was hers alone to perform. She would just have to keep it to herself.

* * *

><p><strong>*Rin is starting to get a little bit psychotic x)<strong>

**This story is almost finished :') Still can't believe it xD**


	8. When The Truth Comes Out

**Guten tag, people :{D Here is the second to last chapter :) **

**Disclaimer: Refer to the previous chapter...its gonna tell you to refer to the previous chapters...**

* * *

><p>Rin sat in bed, trying to read and failing. It was late, very late, the green numerals on the alarm clock showing that it was 11:58 p.m., but she just couldn't sleep. She had been brooding ever since Mum's revelation at supper, unable to stop going over and over in her mind what she had said. Of course it had been a shock, but Rin was beginning to think it actually explained a lot.<p>

* * *

><p><em>~Earlier at Supper~ <em>

_"I just think...everything is going to be all right, I suppose," she said._

_"I'm glad to hear it," Mum said, smiling at her. "So, does this mean you've finally come round to the idea that moving to a flat won't be so bad?"_

_"No, it doesn't," Rin replied. "But then maybe we won't have to."_

_"Oh, Rin," Mum groaned. "I've explained the reasons to you."_

_"What if Dad came back though?" said Rin, trying not to give away, to control the words coming out of her mouth. "I mean, I think we should wait a bit longer. In case he wants to, that is."_

_Mum looked at Rin, her eyes full of sadness. "It's not going to happen, love," she said quietly. "I didn't realize you thought it still might."_

_"You don't know it won't. If Lily wasn't around..."_

_"I do know, Rin. And I should have told you more; then perhaps you'd have understood earlier. But it was hard for me to talk about it." Mum paused and looked down. "The truth is," she murmured, "things hadn't been all that great between your father and me for a long time, even before Lily came on the scene. I think we'd only stayed together because of you."_

_The kitchen suddenly grew hazy, and Mum receded into the distance. Rin felt cold and shivery and sick, and she clenched her fists._

_"What do you mean?" she asked. Her voice sounded hollow to her, as if it wasn't her voice at all. "Are you saying Lily doesn't matter?"_

_"I'm sorry, hun," Mum said, looking up. "She could vanish in a puff of smoke tomorrow and your father and I still wouldn't get back together..."_

_Mum's mouth kept moving, but Rin didn't hear another word._

* * *

><p>Rin had re-run her memories, like videos of the past, and saw her old life in a different light. She had thought about her parent's moodiness with each other and their arguments, and realized it was true: they hadn't been that happy together. Rin sighed. She closed her book and put it down on the bedside table. She shut her eyes and leaned her head against the pillow.<p>

_So Lily wasn't really to blame_. _My parents would probably have split up eventually anyway. Which meant that maybe Mum was right. Maybe it __**is**__ time to sell this house, put the past behind us, move on. All that voodoo stuff, thinking about hurting Lily, even killing her...it was like a bad dream._ Rin could hardly believe she'd actually felt that way.

"_That woman still deserves to die,"_ hissed the voice. _"Die, die, die..."_

Rin had been expecting the voice, of course. But she immediately noticed there was something different about it now, an edge which hadn't been there before, a bitterness in that last word as it echoed inside her skull.

She opened her eyes, catching the numerals on the clock changing to 12:00. She looked beyond the clock, into the corner of the room where the shadows were thickest, and saw a pair of fiery yellow eyes burning in the darkness, staring at her. The voodoo child was beside The Junk Basket.

"But why?" Rin whispered. She could feel her heart thumping.

"_Why?"_ said the voodoo child_. "Because she shouldn't exist. Because this isn't the way it should be, should it? Dad should be here, with Mum, with..."_

"Dad's not coming back though," argued Rin. "I don't think Mum even wants him back. So there's no point in killing Lily. The old life is gone."

"_Gone?"_ the voodoo child wailed, the harsh, shrill sound of the voice filling Rin's head, making her wince. _"It can't be gone, gone, gone..."_

"It is," Rin whispered softly, almost inaudibly, and she suddenly felt as if she were letting go, saying goodbye to it. "Gone forever and ever."

There was a brief silence, but a silence that prickled with menace. _"Well then, we can't let them get away with it,"_

* * *

><p><strong>*gasp* What is the voodoo child going to do? Was that a good cliffhanger? Review and I might upload the final chapter faster...<strong>


	9. A Different Light

**Welcome, welcome all to the chapter you have been waiting for X) the final chapter of Voodoo Child ^.^ I can't believe it's finished x)**

**Disclaimer: My last disclaimer for this story :O I better make this good...I do not own Vocaloid...oh look, a bunny rabbit xD**

* * *

><p>"Who are you talking about?" Rin asked, and then she understood, and she felt herself shiver with a new fear. "Let them get away with what?"<p>

"_The old life was a sham, a lie,"_ the voodoo child muttered. _"Mum and Dad deceived us, made us think we were happy, and then they ruined everything. So they must pay for what they did, what they're still doing."_

"But I don't want to make them pay for anything," Rin whispered, wondering why the voodoo child had started to say 'we' and 'us'.

"_But we do, we do,"_ hissed the voodoo child, the voice almost smug.

Then, with a jolt, Rin found herself standing in front of the wardrobe. The voodoo child flowed towards her her till they were face to face, so close that they were almost touching. Rin realized that the voodoo child had blond hair and blue eyes just like hers, except his hair was tied up in a pony tail. She could see more features too; hair, eyebrows, a nose; a mouth more like a person's. Rin could see that the voodoo child was a strange, dark, terrifying, boy version of her. She held her breath, and her heart seemed to stop. Everything fell into place.

"_Yes, that's right, Rin,"_ said the voodoo child. _"I am your dead twin. And I know what we really want. If we can't have the old life back, the one we thought we had...well, we just want to destroy, destroy, destroy..."_

You see, when Rin's mother was pregnant, she was carrying twins. A boy and a girl. Rin and Len. But when the time came for the birth, only one survived.

Rin let out her breath, but she couldn't speak. She finally met her twin, although it was in a disturbing way. She looked down at her hands, saw that in one she was holding the Lily doll, in the other a pin.

"_So first we start with...that woman,"_ said Len. _"And then we'll make dolls of Mum and Dad, and destroy them too. Hurt them, hurt them, hurt them; stick it in, stick it in, stick it in, stick it in; do it, do it, do it..."_

Rin felt the hand with the pin moving towards the doll. She turned her head and saw that Len's cold hand was on hers, guiding her. He was like a black cloud pressing on her, its darkness seeking the deeper pool of darkness that had always been inside her and from where he must have come from.

"_Do it, do it, do it!"_ he hissed, and the pin moved closer and closer to the doll, its sharp point glinting. _"Nobody cares about us, nobody!"_

But there was another voice in Rin's head too, a small voice telling her that wasn't true. Mum said she cared, hadn't she? And Dad had been trying to make it up to her in some way as well, even if he wasn't very good at doing it. And what would happen if she gave in to her monster–like twin that she had unleashed? The darkness inside her would fill the world, and she would never be happy again. Never.

_And that's what I really want, to be happy.._

Now the pin was almost touching the doll. Rin resisted the power of the hand controlling hers with all her strength, but she was shaking and she knew she couldn't hold it off much longer. She looked up at her twin with pleading eyes.

"Please...You can't do it! I won't let you!"

"_It's too late,"_ Len hissed back_. "Stick it in, stick it in..."_

Suddenly Rin knew that she could resist no more. There was only one thing she could do, only one thing that might save her.

She concentrated on the hand holding the pin, willed her thumb and index finger to move towards Len's ghost-white hand. But the pin was getting closer and closer to the doll, and her fingers wouldn't budge. Then suddenly her hand twitched and slipped into place...just in time for her to plunge the pin into him.

Len felt the sharp point prick his lifeless skin, felt the realness of the pain, and he cried out and let go of his twin's hand.

"_What the heck was that for!"_ he shouted.

"I told you before, I won't let you do this. No matter what they do to us, they're our parents."

"_Don't you realize the pain they were giving you? I felt it, Rin. It made me angry whenever you cried, made me loath myself because I couldn't be there to comfort you no matter how much I wanted to"_

"W...what?"

Len got up and flowed towards her, putting a hand on her cheek.

"_No matter what, Rin, I will always be there for you"_

His image started to slowly fade away.

"Len...wait...where are you going?"

"_Somewhere I can always look out for you"_

"But I don't want you to go!"

He gave her a chaste kiss on her forehead before disappearing into nothingness.

She waited for a moment, hardly daring to believe what had happened. Then she took a deep breath and looked in the wardrobe mirror.

Her eyes briefly flashed yellow, then faded to their normal blue.

She sat on her bed and wondered if that was it, if Len was gone forever. He cared for her all this time and she didn't even think about him. She felt an odd feeling of loneliness, a wanting to see him again, to talk to him.

~_forget you ever met me_~

The soft voice that flowed past her ear sent her crashing down onto her pillow...

* * *

><p>The next thing she knew it was morning, daylight seeping round the blind. Rin sat up. She hadn't had any dreams. She felt okay. No, better than OK – she felt normal, like her old self.<p>

_What happened last night? I had a doll and a pin...then I put the doll down after realizing that this was stupid and went to sleep... but why do I feel as if that wasn't what happened? Maybe I'm thinking too much..._

She jumped out of bed, and then she saw the doll and the pin, lying on the desk. Just an old doll and a pin. That's all they were.

She got washed and dressed, went downstairs for breakfast and saw that Mum was already in the garden, raking laves again. Rin went outside to join her. The air was cold, and the sky was dark and filled with big, grey clouds.

"You're up bright and early for a Saturday," said Mum. "Have you got plans for today? I thought you weren't seeing your dad till tomorrow."

"I thought I might start sorting out my stuff," Rin said, and shrugged. "Maybe I'll need to...if we're going to move."

Mum smiled and came over to her. She cupped her daughter's cheek with her hand and kissed her forehead softly and Rin leaned into her mother's warmth.

_Why is this so familiar? _

The two of them stood together for a moment, holding onto each other.

"That's a great idea, love," said Mum at last. "I've got some sorting out of my own to do, so I'll help you too, if you like. But only on one condition."

"Don't tell me," said Rin, giving her a cheshire grin "You want me to put the kettle on."

"Cheeky," said Mum, ruffling her hair. "But you've got it in one."

Rin's smile was like the sun rising, chasing away the night. Little did she know, someone else was smiling down at her, watching.

* * *

><p><strong>And that's the last chapter done :D It was fun writing this story and I love the reviewers x) You were my motivation XD There will be a new story coming when I finish my other story so stay tuned :D<strong>

**It shall be called..._The Kissing Bandit_**_:_ _Brazen bank robberies are committed by a dashing masked man who steals to give to the poor. But what happens when this grand man meets a pure flower?_ _Set in London during the 19__th __century._


End file.
